Electronic health record (EHR) systems are used to systematically collect health information about individual patients or populations and store the collected information in an electronic format. The collected information can be shared between EHR systems that utilize interfaces that operate according to agreed-upon standards, such as the Health Level 7 (HL7) series of standards.
However, use of multiple EHR systems can be inconvenient. For example, each EHR system often requires a separate authentication process, such as logging into the EHR system. Further, once logged in to a EHR system, the EHR system often starts at a predefined starting location, such as a providing an introductory prompt or home screen. If a user has to switch between EHR systems while performing a task, restarting at a starting location can cause delay. Further, upon switching systems, the user often has to re-enter data already provided to an EHR system, which causes delays at best, and can introduce errors due to incorrectly entered information. Also, while information can be interchanged using HL7 or other interfaces, delivery of HL7 data is not guaranteed to occur in real-time or near real-time; e.g., within one minute or less.